Suspect in random D.C. fatal stabbing has history of mental illness

ALEXANDRIA, VA. - A man with a history of mental illness and homelessness was ordered jailed on a first-degree murder charge Thursday in the stabbing of a 27-year-old D.C. woman who police say was attacked for no apparent reason while walking a dog in the Park View area of Northwest Washington.

The victim, Margery Magill, 27, who was a familiar sight in the neighborhood as a paid dog walker, was stabbed in the back, neck, shoulder and stomach by an assailant who confronted her about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 400 block of Irving Street NW, according to D.C. police.

Shortly afterward, detectives followed a blood trail from the crime scene to an apartment about a quarter-mile away, in the 500 block of Columbia Road NW, according to an affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court. There, Eliyas Aregahegne, 24, was watching television on a couch in his father’s residence, his left middle finger bleeding from a cut, the affidavit says.